A female prison officer was "seduced" by a murderer who ensnared her in a plot to smuggle drugs, alcohol, porn and mobile phones into a high security jail.

Mother-of-two Anita Allenby, 57, "genuinely" believed she was in love with Falak Alam, 28, who was serving life at HMP Full Sutton for beating and stabbing a man to death over a drugs deal when he was just 16.

Alam, who was the "ringleader, organiser and principle beneficiary", used his "profoundly intellectually disabled" brother, Arif Alam, 31, to source the contraband that was smuggled into the Category A prison in East Yorkshire, Hull Crown Court heard.

The trio have now received prison sentences totalling nearly 15 years.

The conspiracy, which was largely successful, took place over five months to December 2014.

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Prosecutor Mark McKone said of Allenby, who began working at the jail in 2005: "She fell in love with Falak Alam, despite being 29 years older than him. Falak Alam might or might not have been in love with her, but they had a sexual relationship, as evidenced by the letters."

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The couple exchanged more than 60 hand-written "love letters" totalling almost 140 pages, the court heard.

They often had a "graphic" sexual content, with the correspondence from Alam also discussing the life he said they would have together on the outside.

Falak Alam

But A-wing prisoner Alam, who in contrast to his brother was described as "intelligent, articulate, resourceful and manipulative", exerted influence and control over his co-conspirators to run the plot.

Prosecutors accepted plans to bring MDMA into the jail did not reach fruition, but text messages between the three suggested phones, spice, subutex, steroids, cannabis, porn and vodka did.

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Alam spoke of having "decent dark" in reference to cannabis resin, but said the skunk [herbal variety] was "poor quality". He also asked for pornography to be brought in on memory sticks, which "goes like hot cakes".

Successfully smuggled contraband was worth three times its street value in the jail, the court heard.

The plot appeared to be lucrative, as the slang terms used in the conspiracy suggested, with "bag of sand" referring to "grand" [£1,000], and Alam saying "people going to turn up with the paper", in reference to money.

The ringleader Alam was offering to pay £1,500 for three memory sticks, and £500 per phone.

He also offered to buy Allenby new laptops and a "pressie" in return. He told her: "I'll get someone to get you one from PC World."

Anita Allenby

Alam had a detailed knowledge of prison security systems, the court heard, and "wanted to distribute drugs at weekends so the authorities thought drugs were coming in from domestic visits".

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Falak Alam admitted conspiracy to supply MDMA, conspiracy to supply cannabis, and conveying mobile phones into prison. He was jailed for six years and three months, which will start on May 1, 2019, just before his earliest release date.

Arif Allam, of Cross Kelso Road, Leeds, admitted conspiracy to supply cannabis, conveying mobile phones into prison, and a range of driving offences after stealing his disabled father's car, in which he crashed into and injured another driver. He was jailed for two years and six months, and was banned from driving for 42 months.

Allenby, of Derwent Crescent, Howden, admitted conspiracy to supply MDMA, conspiracy to supply cannabis, and conveying mobile phones into prison. She was jailed for five years and ten months.

Judge David Tremberg told her: "You, Anita Allenby, well knew that the relationship itself, and what was to follow, was fundamentally incompatible with your role as a prison officer. To behave as you did was a root and branch abuse of trust and a dereliction of your core duty."